The 10 Best Waist Cinchers

This wiki has been updated 20 times since it was first published in May of 2015. Perhaps you're looking for a little extra support for your back or you want to increase your calorie burn during workouts. Or maybe you simply want to ensure that your dress looks stunning on you for a special night out. Whatever the need, one of these waist cinchers will be perfect for the job. We've rated them here by comfort, durability, and ease of use.
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This wiki has been updated 20 times since it was first published in May of 2015. Perhaps you're looking for a little extra support for your back or you want to increase your calorie burn during workouts. Or maybe you simply want to ensure that your dress looks stunning on you for a special night out. Whatever the need, one of these waist cinchers will be perfect for the job. We've rated them here by comfort, durability, and ease of use.
When users buy our independently chosen editorial
recommendations,
we may earn commissions to
help fund the Wiki.
Skip to the best waist cincher on Amazon.

10. Ann Chery 3 Hook

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The Ann Chery 3 Hook comes in a few different colored camouflage options, so you can dress as a sultry cadet for a party or an intimate night in, of course there is also a plain black model, too. Unfortunately, it can take a lot of time and effort to put this thing on.

9. Camellias Corsets Wrap

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Those ready to take their belly fat burning to the next level should get the Camellias Corsets Wrap. It will warm up that stubborn area, making your workouts do more for you, but it's still stretchy enough to allow for a sufficient oxygen intake during exercise.

Quick velcro adjustments

Provides good side support

Can make noise when you move

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Camellias Corsets

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pending

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3.8 / 5.0

UNDER REVIEW

This item has been flagged for editorial review and is not available.

8. Lady Slim Colombian

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The Lady Slim Colombian will instantly trim five inches from your midsection, helping you go from feeling frumpy to fabulous for that special event. That being said, the pressure is actually rather gentle, so it's a great starter item for those new to waist training.

7. Maidenform Brief Control

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Busy individuals or those who travel a lot don't have time to hook and lace up traditional models, nor do they have the room in their suitcase for clunky designs. Luckily, the Maidenform Brief Control is something you can just slide on.

6. Ann Michell Vest

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The Ann Michell Vest comes with wide shoulder straps, helping it to stay firmly in place and also making it very comfortable. Its adjustable body has two rows of hooks, so you can make it tighter as you get used to it and slim down. A soft cotton lines the interior.

5. Maidenform Flexees Nipper

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The beautiful jacquard fabric stitched into every Maidenform Flexees Nipper not only looks good, but also helps eliminate muffin tops. It promotes a sleeker, curvier silhouette, but feels smooth on the skin and sits low enough so as to not interfere with a bra.

4. Camellias Corsets Heavy Duty

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Coming in a traditional design, but with a choice of multiple styles, Camellias Corsets Heavy Duty is equipped with 20 spiral steel bones to keep your midsection firmly under control. It's made with four layers of fabric and can also provide decent lumbar support.

3. Ann Chery Faja Deportiva

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Treat your body right with the Ann Chery Faja Deportiva. It provides a good amount of support for everyday use, but also works great while exercising by helping to keep your muscles warm, allowing you to pump away for longer stretches.

2. Lover-Beauty Underbust

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If you've already spent too much on flat tummy teas and other weight-loss products, you might appreciate the budget-friendly price of the Lover-Beauty Underbust. Its blend of spandex, latex, and cotton results in a piece that is comfortable, strong, and breathes well.

1. Squeem Perfect Waist

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The Squeem Perfect Waist is a great option for taller women. Its long design provides wonderful contours and improves posture, while its flexible internal boning prevents it from rolling up or down as you go about your day.

The Mid Century Girdle - A Memoir

When I think of girdles, I remember my Granny’s girdle. Picture mid-century Massachusetts. The season is fall, through a vintage lens. The sort of grainy crackling you experience when you watch old home movies filmed in Super8 film. Color, but faded, so that the yellows are a muted gold, the reds with an orange-tinge, like the whole world sat in bleach for a few minutes.

My paternal grandmother, Gert (Goldie in the old world) was the most lovable person I’ve ever known: short, doughy, her worn face a bit manly and framed in thick black eyebrows, almost handsome, wearing a housedress that buttoned down the front, with pockets and a 2-inch bias-tape edge, and her stockings worn without a garter belt, scrunched around her ankles like loose socks. She wasn’t the type to wear a girdle around the house.

Such an ordeal was Gert’s girdle, it had to be a real occasion for her to stuff herself into one. Squeezing her stumpy 4'11" Eastern European body into the stiff elastic contraption took both a mental run-up and a considerable amount of single-minded strength.

When I looked at her all dressed up for these special occasions, I still saw all the layers under her heavy wool herringbone coat. Her big-buttoned tweed ladies suit. Her silky old slip with the cling of freshly splashed Jean Naté. And, underpinning everything, holding her together in a neat, immovable brick shape, gripping her stockings with industrial strength, was her girdle.

Granny was making a huge sacrifice on behalf of this rare vanity. Crimping her abundance of flaccid old flesh into the confines of super-tight elastic and struggling to hook the ugly fasteners left her breathless and relieved, a surprised little “I did it!” on her red-pressed lips.

Nowadays, Granny wouldn’t have to go to all that trouble. Today’s women get to wear velour pants with elastic waistbands. Dress it up with a flowy blouse. No stockings. No effen girdle. Now it's a choice, not a convention. We are lucky ladies, indeed.

Ladies Unmentionables: From Brutal to Beautiful

Let's go way back for a minute. We'll start at the time the iron corset would have been worn - the 16th century. (Before that, everyone, men and women, rich and poor alike, just wore a long linen nighty, or shift, under their clothes). According to at least one very smart source, scholars believe this iron corset was a medical device used to correct spine curvature.

During the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, women went from wearing just this unisex loose linen nighty, to wearing the shift in addition to farthingales and corsets. The affect of the farthingales and corsets during that time in history was to flatten the bust and taper into an ice cream cone shape to the waist, then a dramatically wide hip.

A quick aside: You should know that during this time, women wore nothing to cover the nether regions. In the context of human history, drawers are a relatively new invention. It's only since the 1930s that underpants as we know them today came into regular use. About the same time as the brassiere, and interestingly though not serendipitously I suspect, when plumbing became widely available. As you can probably imagine, women didn't need any more encumbrance to relieving the bladder than they already had under all that whale bone and buckram. So, they went commando.

We'll start at the time the iron corset would have been worn - the 16th century.

In the 1700s, baleen and textiles made up the corsets, or stays, that elongated the conical shape to the waist. The equipment list under a woman's dress included: hoops of various widths; a cloth pocket tied around the waist; baleen or wooden stays with busks; and, of course, the linen shift. All with the goal of looking light and airy. By the end of the century, the ideal had changed from wide-loads to junk-in-the-trunk, replacing the hoops with bustles.

Then, the end of the 18th century saw a 30-year period dubbed the Empire/Directoire, in which women dropped all of this artifice in favor of a classical Greco-Roman look. Then modesty won, and the bustle made a big comeback that lasted about 100 years. The corset also came back with a vengeance. The late Victorian corset was so restrictive and contortive that it inspired a whole movement called the rational dress movement.

From the late 1800s through about 1908, we have a combination of undergarments that create an incredibly idealized shape with a dramatically prominent butt and breast that are impossible to achieve in nature. Not coincidentally, this era is the heyday of medical exploration. There was a lot of doctoring to death going on at the turn of the 20th century. Doctors were at the top of the social heap, and they began to deem the restrictive corset as a danger, squeezing the organs, causing hysteria and liver failure, and more.

So, as we wend into the Edwardian era, we see the corset change shape into the S-bend, or "health corset." Supposedly less stressful on the organs, it created a flat tummy, a smaller bust, and a protruding tush. Unfortunately, although women looked healthier due to the flattened abs, any health benefit was counterbalanced by injury to the back. Ironically, the S-bend bent the back in ways that the corset was originally invented to fix. Nonetheless, this style was popular up into the 1910s, when brassieres made their first appearance.

And so we arrive at the Golden Age of Girdles, stretching from the 1920s to the 1960s. Our most iconic ideals were naturally curvy: Jane Russell; Liz Taylor; and, of course, Marilyn Monroe.

In the late 1960s and into the 1970s, nobody wore underwear. Less was more. As a culture, we celebrated a freed bosom and bottom, and a tiny figure, like Farrah Fawcett's. And that led to the 1980s athletic ideal, a big bust and tight buns as exemplified by Jane Fonda's remarkable fitness even into her 50s. In an effort to look natural and to free women from the confines of undergarments, both exercise and plastic surgery spiked. Now you could get your tummy tucked, your breasts augmented and your butt lifted, permanently. Underwear became practical and comfortable. In an effort to slim the hip, we adopted shoulder pads that lasted all the way to the next century.

The next undergarment revolution came when Madonna famously, shockingly, made it popular to wear underwear on the outside. We still see the exposed bra-strap today, and it isn't always pretty.

In the 21st century, millennial women exercise. We make the most of what nature provided. And we can buy waist cinchers to help nature along without a knife. Part underwear; part exer-wear. We've found a way to give ourselves the hourglass shape, but only if we want it. And that is a beautiful thing.

How to Size Your Waist Cincher in 4 Easy Steps

Tie a length of elastic around the smallest part of your waist and wiggle from side to side to let it settle. You have found your natural waist.

Using a tape measure, measure at the level where the elastic settled. If your waist is larger than 32 inches, you may want to wrap it all little tighter, since it will compress more easily than a fat-free waist. This is where judgment comes in. Too tight and you won't wear it. Too loose and it won't cinch properly.

The fabric of the waist cincher is very important in determining size. Waist cinchers made with more elastic, lycra and spandex will stretch more, so they need to be a little smaller. To show results, it must be rather tight.

Use the manufacturer's size chart. Most companies put a lot of research into these charts, and they will, more often than not, provide you with an incredibly close-to-perfect option.

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A wandering writer who spends as much time on the road as in front of a laptop screen, Brett can either be found hacking away furiously at the keyboard or, perhaps, enjoying a whiskey and coke on some exotic beach, sometimes both simultaneously, usually with a four-legged companion by his side. He has been a professional chef, a dog trainer, and a travel correspondent for a well-known Southeast Asian guidebook. He also holds a business degree and has spent more time than he cares to admit in boring office jobs. He has an odd obsession for playing with the latest gadgets and working on motorcycles and old Jeeps. His expertise, honed over years of experience, is in the areas of computers, electronics, travel gear, pet products, and kitchen, office and automotive equipment.

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